STEIN, RICHARD

STEIN, RICHARD (1898– ), Israeli ophthalmologist. Stein was born in Bohemia, the son of a farmer. After serving as an officer in the Austrian army during World War I, in which he was taken prisoner by the Italians, he studied medicine at the University of Prague and worked at the eye clinic of the university until the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938. During World War II, he was incarcerated in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and was put in charge of health services there. After the war he founded an ophthalmological department in a hospital in Prague but in 1949 immigrated to Israel, having been invited to treat soldiers who had suffered eye injuries in the War of Independence. He established the ophthalmological department of Tel ha-Shomer (now Chaim Sheba) Hospital and was the first to perform retinal transplants in Israel. He was appointed professor of ophthalmology at Tel Aviv University in 1966. Stein was president of the Israel Ophthalmological Association for six years and a member of the International Ophthalmological Association. He was awarded the Israel Prize in 1973.